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Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
What function best Describes you?
Commentary:The Social Effect & Feathr are pleased with the breadth & depth of the survey respondents. Survey participants come from most continents, and represent large organizers such as Reed, UBM/Informa, Clarion & Messe Frankfurt to Associations putting on one trade show per year.
38%
46%
7%
9%
Event Management
Event Marketing
Event Sales (exhibition/sponsor)
Other
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
Split between Exprom &Visprom marketing Budgets
Commentary:It’s difficult applying an average as the surveyed results ranged from 0% to 100% of overall marketing budgets split between Exprom and Visprom marketing. However, when we consolidate the mid-range results it’s more like a 50/50 budget split.
43%57%
EXPROM
VISPROM
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
How does your marketing supportyour exhibitor promotion?
Commentary:While digital marketing proactively supports exhibitor promotion, there is no consistency in what form that support takes - this in itself is surprising.
Surprisingly, less than half of all respondents (40%) use social to announce new exhibitor signings and even less (33%) use it to amplify exhibitor success stories and testimonials. Only 31% of respondents use paid media tactics to drive exhibitor inquiries, yet 42% have great inbound lead-generation strategies.
If you have a strong inbound lead-generating website, then using paid media to increase traffic (exhibitor prospects) to your website would perfectly complement your strategy. The most surprising result is that only 40% of respondents are using LinkedIn for social selling to support exhibitor marketing. This is a massive missed opportunity.
41%31%
42%
40%
33%40%
It doesn’t really, we get marketing collateral and use email, but sales generate their own leads
We announce exhibitor signups to attract other exhibitors
We use social media to amplify success stories and testimonials
We have a great inbound strategy (potential exhibitors find us and fill in an enquiry form)
We use paid media to advertise to potential exhibitors/sponsors
We use social selling, e.g. LinkedIn, to contact and pitch exhibitors/sponsors
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
What are your biggest marketing challenges for growing your exhibition attendance?
Commentary:
Difficulty selecting & implementing new tools & channels
Converting pre-registrations to attendance (no shows)
A decline in database effectiveness
Reliability of marketing metrics to guide decision making
Not enough resources to do the job (staff, skills, funding)
Converting digital traffic to pre-registration
Competition from other events
Reaching your target audience53%
45%
38%
36%
26%
24%
23%
21%
Reaching your target audience is clearly the biggest marketing challenge among survey recipients at 53%, followed by ‘Competition from other events’ at 45%.
Organizers need to put ‘Reaching your target audience’ into two distinct buckets. First, there is reaching a ‘new audience’ which is made up of event prospects that have never heard of your event and the second bucket is reaching your previous attendees. Both require different strategies.
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
What marketing tools/channels do youcurrently use?
Commentary:We purposefully didn’t include email marketing in the survey answers as we wanted to explore the use of less common tools and channels. With exhibitor invite programs (69%), paid social advertising (68%) and remarketing (60%), we get a strong indication of where the majority of the survey recipients are focusing their marketing efforts.
We were pleasantly surprised that ‘exhibitor invite programs’ came in at number one. Marketing programs designed to leverage your exhibitor’s existing customer network is undoubtedly an effective way to market your event.
60%68%
29%15%
69%
53%44%
37%
14%6%
Rem
arke
ting
Paid
soc
ial a
dver
tisin
g
Geo
fenc
ing
Exhi
bito
r inv
ite p
rogr
am
Att
ende
e in
vite
pro
gram
Mar
ketin
g au
tom
atio
n
Paid
sea
rch
Cha
tbot
s/w
ebsi
te c
hat
Oth
er
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
What marketing channels did you implement for the first time last year?
Commentary:With 60% of our survey recipients implementing retargeting for the first time over the last year, it’s clear that there’s a strong focus on trying to re engage event traffic that didn’t convert on their previous visits to event websites.
60%
23%31%
18%
8%17%
15%
10% 12%
Rem
arke
ting
Paid
soc
ial a
dver
tisin
g
Geo
fenc
ing
Exhi
bito
r inv
itepr
ogra
m
Att
ende
ein
vite
pro
gram
Mar
ketin
gau
tom
atio
n
Paid
sea
rch
Cha
tbot
s/w
ebsi
te
chat
Oth
er
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
What marketing tools / channels do you planto implementthis year?
Commentary:In the coming year, some event marketing plans will include the following tools and channels: geofencing (42%), marketing automation (38%) and paid social (36%).
What’s most interesting about geofencing is that it can be used to target event attendees while attending competing events (geo conquesting), and also as a way to generate additional revenue from your exhibitors.
33%36%
42%
35%
29%
38%
22% 22%
13%
Rem
arke
ting
Paid
soc
ial a
dver
tisin
g
Geo
fenc
ing
Exhi
bito
r inv
itepr
ogra
m
Att
ende
ein
vite
pro
gram
Mar
ketin
gau
tom
atio
n
Paid
sea
rch
Cha
tbot
s/w
ebsi
te
chat
Oth
er
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
In which areas do you think your marketing has the most room for improvement?
Commentary:We can segment ‘room for improvement’ into two categories:
First, and in line with the top challenges listed previously in this survey, we have ‘targeting’ (58%), analysis & attribution (47%) and website design & optimisation (also 47%).
The second is the selection (42%) and implementation (49%) of new marketing technology. With so many marketing technology options available and the complexities involved in implementing them, this is clearly a challenge and focus area for improvement for many trade show organisers..
49%58%
47%
47%
37% 42%
32%
0%
TargetingWebsite design and optimization
New marketingtechnologyimplementation
Copywriting
Creative production
Other
New marketing technology selection
Analysis & attribution
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
What are the most effective tools foryour event marketing?
Commentary:It’s no surprise that email (71%), Website (67%) and Social Media (46%) are the top three marketing tools for trade show marketers.
What is a little more surprising is that ‘bespoke landing pages’ is second to last at 8%. As trade show audiences are generally broad and contain multiple persona groups, bespoke or persona-based landing pages greatly improve time-on-site and conversions, as well as reduce bounce rates.
Emai
l mar
ketin
g
Web
site
Soci
al M
edia
Influ
ence
r mar
ketin
g
Invi
te p
rogr
ams
Vid
eo
Regi
stra
tion
site
Rem
arke
ting
Prin
ted
med
ia
Pres
sre
leas
es
Blog
ging
Live
str
eam
ing
Besp
oke
land
ing
page
s
Expe
rien
tial
mar
ketin
g
Podc
ast
71%
67%46%
33%
26%24%
23%24%
19%14% 15%
23%
8%
9%
5%
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
Do you use website analytics to track which channels are sending you the most registrations?
YES50% 38% 12%
NO I DONT KNOW
Commentary:Only 50% of survey recipients are using analytics to understand which channels are producing registrations. This seems counterintuitive when our survey respondents also find ‘reaching their target audience’ and ‘converting digital traffic to pre-registration’ as major challenges.
Without robust analytics, it’s impossible to spend marketing budget smartly or even start a discussion on ROI.
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
Where does most ofyour website trafficcome from?
Commentary:Again, no surprise with the top four answers - email (56%), social media (27%), search engines (26%), and paid advertising 23%.
What is a surprise is that as digital marketers, we know that ‘I don’t know’ likely includes ‘direct traffic’ which often makes up 20% to 40% of total traffic.
56%
27%
26%
23%
9%
8%1%
Social Media
Search Engines
Paid Advertising
Somewhere else
I don’t know
Unanswered
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
Do you do your marketing in-house, through an agency, or via a selection of different providers?
WE DO EVERYTHING IN HOUSE
65% 9% 26%WE USE DIFFERENT PROVIDERSWE WORK WITH AN AGENCY
Commentary:The majority of recipients do their marketing inhouse (65%).
Three of the top four marketing challenges listed above are: ‘reaching their target audience’ 2) ‘converting digital traffic to pre-registration’ 3) ‘Not having enough resources (staff, skills, funding). With this in mind, it’s imperative that organisers start investing in their teams or start using specialist agencies and providers.
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
What were your biggest challenges last year? Commentary:
Over the last year our respondents’ number one challenge was the amount of marketing budget they were working with (54%), followed by achieving attendee targets (46%).
As marketing budgets & attendee targets go hand-in-hand, it’s clear that organizers need to be as smart as possible with how they spend their budgets.
54%46%
35%31%
29% 28% 27%
24%19% 18%
14%15%
10% 10%12%
8%9%
5%
Budg
ets
Att
ende
e nu
mbe
rs
Find
ing
spon
sors
Get
ting
mor
e ex
hibi
tors
New
idea
s
Wor
k lif
e ba
lanc
e
Know
ing
whe
ther
my
budg
et is
bei
ng s
pent
eff
ectiv
ely
Too
man
y co
mpe
ting
even
ts
GD
PR
Last
min
ute/
late
boo
king
s
Lack
of s
uppo
rt/u
nder
stan
ding
from
man
agem
ent
Sour
cing
spe
aker
s
Get
ting
bett
er ra
tes
Att
ende
e sa
tisfa
ctio
n
Find
ing
the
righ
t tec
hnol
ogy
Car
eer p
rogr
essi
on
No
show
s
Find
ing
good
su
pplie
rs
Trade Show Marketing Insights Report 2019
This survey was run by:
The Social Effect is a specialist event marketing agency that believes there’s always a smarter, faster
and better way to market your events. Visit our website to find out more:
https://thesocialeffect.com
Feathr is the digital marketing toolkit built for specifically for events. Feathr’s lineup of tools like Ads, Invites, and Conversations work together to help you do your best marketing and grow event attendance.
Learn more at https://feathr.co.